THEN to your horror, someone mentions that it looks like chicken poop in the browser they’re using! Yikes!

It’s a big problem to find, install, and test browser compatibility with the many browsers available. So what do you do?

Easy! Head over to Browsershots.org! You’ll find a panel like the one pictured below. Simply enter your web address, choose the browsers that you’d like to test and click “Submit.”

Browsershots then opens your website in the chosen browsers, takes a screenshot in each, then displays them so that you can see what your site looks like across the board. Here’s what POD For You looks like in a few browsers:

Or the cybersquatter would monetize a site located at the domain name and make money from traffic intended to go elsewhere.

Either way, that changed in 1999 with the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (PDF). This law subjects cybersquatters to civil lawsuits, so you’ll likely see a big company pull a big lawyer out instead of their big wallet. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather stay away from a courtroom facing some big conglomeration. Makes me sleep better at night.

My advice? Stay away from domain names that contain another company’s name or a trademark.

There are hundreds of other domain registrars out there, like ….. just make sure you choose a domain registrar that is trustworthy. If you want to know why, just Google the name RegisterFly. Not pretty!

One reason that I stick with is their Super Bowl commercials. Nope…. I ain’t impressed with flashing boobies. But any company that spends that kind of mega bucks on a commercial year after year isn’t some fly-by-night organization that will disappear with my domain name tomorrow. Who knows? They may go under next week, but I know that they didn’t just open their doors yesterday.

It’s sort of like comparing Wal Mart with the new mom and pop gift shop in town. Twenty years from now, it will be more likely that Wal Mart is still standing while the mom and mom shop is long gone. I’d rather trust my domain name to someone who’s less likely to disappear in a few years.

Now that you’re at the domain registrar’s site, it’s time to take your list of domain names and do a search. Search for your favorite one first. If you’re lucky, it will be available. If you’re not lucky, move to the next best choice. Keep going until you find one that’s open.

PURCHASE THAT NAME ASAP! Trust me….. if you like the name, don’t walk away to think for a bit. I don’t care if the cat pukes a hairball on your foot. Buy the name and THEN clean up the mess.

While you’re at it, it’s a very good idea to buy a few variations. Let’s say you luck up and get dogs.com…. it wouldn’t hurt to buy dog.com and “dogs” with different extensions: dogs.biz, dogs.mobi, etc. This prevents competitors from snapping them up later. You can point them all to your site.

If you can afford to, register your domain for more than one year. This does two things: 1. it shows the search engines that you plan on being around for a while and 2. saves you from the hassle of registering your name each year. Trust me, I forgot to do it one year and I’ve been kicking myself ever since for losing that name!

I made that mistake early on. I did a search at a popular registrar trying to find a good name that I wanted to register the next week. I spent 30 minutes and finally found the perfect name. What happened when I went back? It was taken! Companies will snap up good domain names that were searched for but not registered. And sorry, but I’m not giving a few hundred bucks to someone just because they think they can gouge the price. Lesson learned.

So what do you do then? Normally, I take my possible domain names and type them into my address bar. If someone owns it and has a site there already, I cross it off my list. If there is nothing there, I circle it as a maybe. Just remember, even if there is nothing there yet doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been registered. Someone could own it already and just hasn’t had the time to build a site.

After getting at least 6 or 7 possible names, I ask my friends for their opinions. What may sound great to you may be ridiculous gibberish to others. Maybe they think it’s hard to spell or remember. If you have to explain what it means, you probably need to cross it off your list. (NOTE: Make sure you ask people that are familiar with your niche. If I had asked my mom about POD For You, she would have asked me what it meant. The people in my industry, however, automatically know that POD means print-on-demand and would understand the name.)

After you have your list of possible names, put them in order from your favorite down to your least favorite. IF you think that you’ll waffle on a name when it comes right down to registering it, do yourself a favor and cross it off your list now. You don’t want to wind up with a name that you’ll ultimately hate (I have 2) OR search to find it open, but be indecisive and kick yourself later for letting it slip away.

One good tip that I’ve used throughout the years is to use a keyword tool. Keyword tools, like Wordtracker and Good Keywords give you lots of ideas about what search terms people are using to find sites in your niche. Having a good domain name with keyword phrases that are searched often helps your site to place higher in the search engine ranks.

For example, I was searching for a domain name for an art review site. By doing a search, I realized that the words “up and coming” were used to search for new artists. I chose a domain name that included those words. I get several hits from terms like “up and coming artists.”

Experiment with the keywords and keyword phrases until you come up with several variations of a domain name that you like.

Domain names must be at least 3 characters, but not over 63 characters. Keep in mind, however, that domains with hyphens and longer domain names can be harder to remember. It’s very easy for a surfer to forget a hyphen and land on your competitor’s site. Shorter domain names are also less prone to typing mistakes.

Try to stay away from the number 0 which can be confused with the letter O unless it’s part of a bigger number like 1000. Also, try to stay away from domains that use 2 for the word “to” and 4 for the word “for.” It’s very easy to forget that the number was used instead of the word. People tend to think of words when typing internet addresses.

Think about it….. choosing a domain name is a bit like getting someone’s name tattooed on your arm. As long as your business is alive, you’re stuck looking at that name day after day. Choose one wisely!

What is a domain name? A domain name is your address on the internet. When you type an address into your browser, you type the (www.) or (http://www.) first. Then you add the domain name. (in our case podforyou) Type the extension. (.com, .net, .info, .gov, .org, .biz, .bz, .mobi and so on) There you go….. our address looks like this: www.podforyou.com or http://www.podforyou.com.

Sometimes an address will also end with a folder extension. For example, our forums are located in the /forums directory of our site. To get there, you have to type in www.podforyou.com/forums.

Think of the planning and content like measuring the ingredients for a cake recipe- it gets messy and confusing sometimes, but if you do it well, finding tons of willing volunteers to eat the cake (visitors) is a snap. Search engines will send you free traffic if you’ve done your homework and included a bunch of targeted keywords in a niche that’s not too narrow or over-saturated.

Once everything is in place, then it’s time for you to expand your wings and start marketing your site a bit more. Start with free marketing using social networks. You can do several things like: build a Squidoo lens concerning your niche, Twitter about your exploits, create a MySpace or Facebook account…. the list goes on and on.

After you’ve started receiving search engine traffic and traffic from social networks, it may be time for you to experiment with paid advertising. I’ll warn you though…. GO SLOW! Advertising is sometimes like gambling….. you give sites your money and you may or may not see a good return of your investment. NEVER spend more on advertisement than you can comfortably afford to lose.

Even if you find a great moneymaker, things sometimes happen that are beyond our control. I’ve heard several shopkeepers bemoan the fact that one of our POD companies crashed while they had advertising campaigns running. It happens…. trust me….. you don’t want to spend a ton of money that you can’t afford to lose when there are so many variables involved.

Before we go any farther, let me just point out: content does NOT have to be pages and pages of articles like this one. One good example of what I’m talking about is using CPShop to begin an affiliate t-shirt site. Now, if you were doing a dog t-shirt site, you could add some dog articles to help draw visitors to your site. But, what kind of articles would you add to a naughty t-shirt site? *pauses* Ok… I could probably think of some, but that’s beside the point…. *wicked grin*

Content can be as complicated as writing a series of articles OR it can be as simple as writing good, keyword-rich descriptions! I am gonna put this in big, bold letters: DESCRIPTIONS CAN MAKE OR BREAK A PRODUCT-ORIENTED WEBSITE!!! No descriptions or cruddy descriptions = no way for search engines to find you = no customers = no money!

My best piece of advice is to do what you love. You’ll have tons of ideas about a niche that you know and love. I have a cooking/foodie site because I know and love a lot about food! *at least that’s what my scales keep tellin’ me*

Then you have to research and decide which topics to pursue for that niche. For my example, I had to think about things like: Do I want to concentrate on one style of cooking, like Italian, Chinese, etc? Do I want to stick to one type of food, like vegetables, desserts, etc?

When you are narrowing down your topics, you need to also ask yourself, “Which topics will be the most profitable?” Simply posting recipes and monetizing with AdSense may not be as profitable as writing reviews about wine refrigerators and offering product links, for example.

Also, you need to research and pick the best affiliate programs for your niche.

Let’s say that you’re going to do a t-shirt shop with affiliated designs. Which do you think you will find more products to choose from, boys and girls?

A. Dogs

B. Warthogs

Well, duh! Dogs, of course! There are tons and tons of dog t-shirts available from a wide variety of vendors.

One caution, though….. make sure your niche is not over-saturated. There are probably 82 gabillion sites on dogs. Sometimes the niche needs to be narrowed…. perhaps a site that focuses only on one breed would be easier to rank well in the search engines with. But don’t narrow it down too far! “Labrador Retrievers” might be easy to find information and products for…… “chocolate labrador retrievers” would be harder……. “blind chocolate labrador retrievers with arthritis” starts to mosey into the, “I’m a tad anal” category.